WOULD YOU RATHER (2012)

Studio:       IFC Midnight
Director:    David Guy Levy
Writer:       Steffen Schlachtenhaufen
Producer:  Zak Kilberg, Maura Anderson, David Guy Levy
Stars:     Brittany Snow, Jeffrey Combs, Jonny Coyne, Lawrence Gilliard Jr., Enver Gjokaj, Sasha Grey, John Heard

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Eight participants desperate for a change in their lives are forced by a wealthy benefactor to play a deadly game of “Would You Rather.” 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Desperate for money that she can use to support her ailing brother, Iris applies for a position at a restaurant even though she has no prior experience. Dr. Barden, who treats her brother for bone marrow cancer, summons Iris to his office to meet Shepard Lambrick. Lambrick has the financial means to improve her brother’s life if Iris agrees to participate in a game. He gives her a card and asks her to RSVP that evening if she accepts the invitation. Scarred on one side of his head, Dr. Barden tells Iris that he was once the winner of Lambrick’s annual event and that it changed his life. After Iris leaves, Dr. Barden later questions if she is fit for Lambrick’s game. Back at home, Iris receives a call telling her that she did not get the restaurant job. Her brother feels like a burden. She decides to take Lambrick’s offer.

A car takes Iris to Lambrick’s mansion where she is greeted by the butler, Bevans. Iris meets the other eight contestants. Cal is from Seattle. Lucas is from Iowa. Peter is a high stakes gambler from Las Vegas. Linda is an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Travis is a military veteran of the Iraq war. Amy is a self-centered “bad girl.” Conway is a middle-aged alcoholic. Bevans confiscates everyone’s possessions. Upstairs, Lambrick prepares his son Julian for observing the game objectively. Julian is instructed to not touch any of the participants, although he may engage them in conversation. Elsewhere, Dr. Barden has second thoughts about involving Iris in Lambrick’s game. He packs a gun and heads for the mansion.

The eight contestants are seated at the dining room table with Lambrick and his son. Bevans and his staff attend to the dinner service. Iris tells Lambrick that she cannot eat the steak and foie gras because she is a vegetarian. To prove that everyone has a price, Lambrick convinces Iris to eat the meat for $10,000. Conway reveals that he is a recovering alcoholic when Lambrick notices that he is not drinking his wine. Lambrick offers Conway $10,000 to drink the glass of wine or $50,000 to drink an entire decanter of Scotch. After an emotional struggle, Conway drinks the Scotch.

When dinner ends, Lambrick explains that the participants will play a game of “Would You Rather.” Players are eliminated if they refuse to make a choice or to act on their decision. Each dilemma presented also has a time limit. Players in round one have 15 seconds to make their choice. After explaining the rules, Lambrick gives everyone an opportunity to refuse participation and leave. Everyone elects to stay.

Bevans wheels in an electrocution machine configured with a car battery and head straps. Seeing the torture device, Conway tries to leave. Lambrick tells him that leaving is not an option anymore. When Conway becomes irate, Bevans shoots him in the head. Linda asks to leave and Lambrick points out that participation is no longer voluntary. Cal and Amy are fitted with the head straps. Cal is asked if he would rather electrocute himself or electrocute Amy. Cal chooses himself. Amy is then asked to choose between herself and Linda. She chooses Linda before the timer even begins. Linda shocks Peter on her turn. Travis shocks Lucas. Lucas shocks himself instead of Iris. Iris shocks herself instead of Cal.

Lambrick leaves the room to prepare for the next round. The contestants discuss an escape plan before Julian interrupts. When Julian berates the group, Travis stands up to him. The servants cover the dining room floor and walls with plastic. Round two is given a 30 second time limit for decision making. Iris is given a choice between stabbing Cal in the thigh with an ice pick and striking Travis three times with a sjambok, which is an African whipping stick. The group discusses that stabbing the thigh risks puncturing an artery. They collectively agree to have Iris whip Travis. Lucas is given a choice between stabbing Iris and whipping Travis again. After a discussion, Travis agrees to be whipped once more. Travis is asked to choose between stabbing Lucas and allowing Bevans to whip him. Travis realizes that he is being singled out because he threatened Julian. Travis chooses another whipping and comes close to death.

Since her legs are paralyzed, Peter chooses to stab Linda’s thigh, as Travis is too injured to survive another whipping. Peter hits her artery and Linda begins bleeding profusely. Peter tries frantically to stop the bleeding with a belt. Meanwhile, Linda chooses to stab Amy. Amy is allowed to stab anyone she chooses. Amy selects Iris. Lambrick grants Amy’s request to stab Iris anywhere and Amy puts the icepick into Iris’ side. In the basement, Dr. Barden sneaks into the mansion with his gun.

Linda dies from her leg wound and is removed from the room. Believing Amy’s suggestion that they will have to eliminate the other players in order to survive, Cal chooses to whip Travis, which ultimately kills him. While Bevans and Lambrick are in a discussion, the players attempt a revolt. Iris escapes into the house during the struggle. Cal is shot and killed when he tries to attack Lambrick. Peter, Lucas, and Amy are brought back to their seats at gunpoint while Bevans and Julian search for Iris. Julian finds Iris in the basement and begins assaulting her. Iris fights off Julian as Dr. Barden arrives on scene. Before Barden can act, Bevans shoots him. Julian pleads with Bevans to shoot Iris for attacking him, but Bevans takes her back to the game. Bevans tells Lambrick what happened with Julian and Lambrick leaves the room.

Lambrick returns and apologizes to Iris for Julian’s behavior. Julian is also forbidden from returning to observe the game. For the next round, the players are given a choice between having their heads held in a barrel of water for two minutes or the unknown punishment on a card sealed in an envelope before each player. Peter chooses the card. His punishment is to hold a firecracker in his hand, which turns out to be a quarter stick of dynamite. The explosive is duct taped into his hand. After it explodes, Peter dies. Lucas chooses the card and is forced to slice his eye with a razor blade. Iris chooses the barrel and successfully lasts underwater for two minutes. Amy chooses the card, which requires four minutes underwater. Amy drowns.

Iris and Lucas are the only remaining players. Because the first participant in the final round has an advantage, a coin is flipped and Iris wins. Iris is given a choice between allowing both her and Lucas to walk free without any money or shooting Lucas with a dueling pistol and winning the game. As Lucas pleads his case for survival, Iris shoots him in the chest. Lambrick gives Iris the cash prize and allows her to go home. Once there, she discovers that her brother used pills to commit suicide.

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Review:

If there is such a thing as a “tasteful” way to do torture horror, then “Would You Rather” is it.  The plot is little more than a setup to explore the limits of human endurance and moral dilemmas in the face of confronting unimaginable pain.

Desperation drives people to extreme measures, after all.  So does the desire/need for money.  The two are usually intertwined somehow, and few know this better than Shepard Lambrick (Jeffrey Combs).  Lambrick is a wealthy philanthropist, although that noun is debatable considering the questionable way he goes about selecting someone to benefit from his depthless pockets.  At his stately manor, Lambrick assembles eight people down on their luck and in dire need of a cash windfall for one reason or another.  They know that Lambrick has the means to change their lives.  What they do not know is how far they will have to go to earn his favor.

Lambrick’s eight “contestants” include alcoholic Conway (John Heard), bad girl Amy (Sasha Grey), and well meaning Iris (Brittany Snow), who simply needs money for the mounting medical bills of her ailing brother.  After a few appetizing dares to prove that everyone has a price for compromising their ideals, Lambrick serves up the main course.  If the participants want to win the grand prize, they will have to be the last person standing after a game of “Would You Rather.”  Except this particular version of the game involves choices that range between extremely deadly and brutally fatal.

Brittany Snow may be first billed, but Jeffrey Combs is the star of the show.  Even with most of his performance portrayed while seated at a dining room table, he has more to do here than in any previous role and he completely chews up every last crumb.  This is the type of character perfectly suited for Combs’ acting style and it is difficult to conceive of an alternative shortlist of actors who would fit the part as well.

Combs’ aristocratic Lambrick is a mixture of well-bred blue blood and B-movie camp.  It is precisely that latter descriptor that prevents the movie from drowning too deeply in its sadistic side.  Whether sinisterly munching pistachios while plotting devious dares or sincerely apologizing for his son’s behavior when the rules are broken, Combs keeps the drama balanced and the tension bearable.

His demeanor starts disarmingly enough.  It seems he may merely have a mean streak with the way that he casually insults longtime vegetarian Iris after she accepts his meat eating challenge.  While she laughs nervously at her surprise behavior and relishes a five-figure payment, Lambrick laughingly undercuts her dignity with the observation, “a lifetime of discipline and commitment to cause wiped away by a mere $10,000.”  It is a slow and subtle way to build the mood change about to unfold.

His blackly comic dialogue is just as honest as it is demeaning.  He may not be physically imposing, but he commands authority through admonition.  It is easy to both laugh and to be reminded of the serious stakes at hand in a scene where he reminds a player, “well obviously participation is no longer voluntary, I believe we just made that perfectly clear.”

Jeffrey Combs is the centerpiece of “Would You Rather,” which is a very good thing for anyone tired of excessive blood and depictions of dismemberment or mutilation in the torture sub-genre.  Even though “Would You Rather” fits that classification, its scenes of torture are focused on psychological squirms as opposed to gore.  Pain is sold by grimaces on the actors’ faces rather than practical makeup FX.

“Would You Rather” will not convert anyone already tired of the “people forced to hurt others” horror film plotline.  Yet it is refreshing that the film is more interested in developing characters and its story than it is in grossing out an audience.

“How far would you go in X situation” is a well-cooked concept.  “Would You Rather” still makes it entertaining.  The tension is tight without resorting to blood-soaked sights, though the script stumbles with a pair of B plots involving a doctor with a change of heart and Lambrick’s loony son.  Neither character goes anywhere important in the story and their appearances often interrupt an otherwise suspenseful flow.

There is no deep moral message here.  “Would You Rather” is torture horror, but the presentation is not unashamedly salacious.  From John Heard’s small role to Jeffrey Combs’ big one, the actors bring their top game to the script and it pays off with a movie that could have been completely derivative if it were not so devilishly enjoyable.

Review Score:  80

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